Contents: Volume 2

The 4th Sunday of ADVENT (C)

  - December 22, 2024

1. -- Lanie LeBlanc OP - 4th Sunday of Advent
2. -- Dennis Keller - OP - 4th Sunday of Advent
3. -- Paul O'Reilly, SJ - 4th Sunday of Advent
4. --Fr. John Boll, OP - 4th Sunday of Advent
5. --(Your reflection can be here!)

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Advent 4C 2024

The Gospel passage from Luke this 4th Sunday of Advent is a bit unusual. It focuses a bit more on Mary than Jesus, but in a positive way. Elizabeth says to and of Mary, “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”

I SO need to hear that right now, probably like Mary did about the unknown events unraveling (in more ways than one) in her life. Mary always leads us to Jesus. Her faith, trusting beyond what seems reasonable at the time, birthed our salvation!

In a time of great unknowing , Mary went to help Elizabeth. She did not sit around in self-pity or shut down. Even in later life, when Mary witnessed the crucifixion of Jesus, she held on to the belief that the Lord’s Plan would be fulfilled by whatever part she played in it.

So here we are, many modern day people, faced with unknowing beyond unknowing in matters we never dreamed would happen in our life time! I am my family’s “primary caretaker” in today’s modern language and also just happen to be a woman like Mary. I’d like to be much more like Mary, I must admit, but her faith in similar caretaking roles resonates with me and encourages me substantially, as I hope it does for us all.

Troubled times call for more prayer, discernment, and faith especially when they seem to get pushed out of each day’s 24 hours by the turmoil of everyday life. Being a believer is often counter to modern society’s way of doing things. I believe that is how what the Lord promises will be fulfilled is actually fulfilled, however.

So how are you, at whatever troubled level you find yourself the few days before Christmas, going to reach out and push through the unknown in your life? Pray about it, for sure. Then get on the virtual road with Mary and me and do it in some small way.

Christmas Blessings,
Dr. Lanie LeBlanc OP
Southern Dominican Laity
lanie@leblanc.one

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Fourth Sunday of Advent December 22, 2024

Micah 5:1-4; Responsorial Psalm 80; Letter to Hebrews 10:5-10;
Gospel Acclamation 1:38; Luke 1:39-45

Luke’s Gospel is more focused on women disciples than any of the other Gospels. In the reading for this last Sunday of preparation the strength and the faith of two contrasting women is demonstrated. Elizabeth is well past child-bearing age. Though it is apparent in the lead up to this encounter of Elizabeth with Mary we have heard about Zachariah. He was serving in the temple offering incense offerings to God when Gabriel spoke to him about fathering a child. This was not only a boy who would carry on the genetic line of Zechariah but would also be the one to prepare the way for the Messiah. He was incredulous. He thought himself and his bride too old to conceive. His protests, lacking faith in the angel’s message, caused him to be muted. We recall that his tongue was loosed when after the Birth of this child, he wrote “His name is John.” During the period of gestation, he had time to consider the visitation of Gabriel.

Think of this couple, suddenly after many years of infertility, suddenly at advanced age conceiving a child naturally. Think of the gospel, the speculation, the snide remarks in their village in the land of Judah. Anyone who lived, lives, or plans to live in small towns anywhere in the world knows that everyone knows everyone else and everyone else’s business.

Luke, masterfully, contrasts Mary and Elizabeth. Elizabeth is past child bearing. Mary is just beginning her time of fertility. Elizabeth and Zechariah are too old and not expected to become pregnant. Mary is unmarried but betrothed and not living with her intended Joseph. Pregnancy for each is unexpected by the village’s population. What is unexpected becomes grist for gossip. Both are the butt of joking and speculation. Mary would be a candidate for stoning according to Mosaic law because of the presumption of adultery. Who is the father? Was Joseph cohabitating?
Both women were in need of support. Elizabeth sensed Mary’s pregnancy because the child in her womb leapt when Mary greeted her. The consequences of God’s intervention in the pregnancy of these two contrasted women brought them together. Mary is young, Elizabeth is old. Mary is capable of having children. Elizabeth is too old. Both will be subject of malicious and frivolous gossip. Zachariah and Elizabeth had trouble having faith in the message of Gabriel. Mary had faith when she heard that cousin Elizabeth was with child.

The reading from the prophet Micah is from a tumultuous period of Israelite history between 734 BCE and 687 BCE. The neo-Assyrian empire was boosting its economic strength by military means. Bethlehem was very small and easily overrun by the Assyrians. They had already captured the Northern Kingdom (called Israel) and had scattered 4/5ths of the citizens to the four winds. God intervened taking the insignificant to accomplish God’s plan. The reference to a ruler from ancient origins is not David but David’s father Jesse. Micah declares that God has given up the nation of Israel and Judah till the birth of one who will reunite Israel’s citizens who are a remnant of that Northern Kingdom. And that new ruler from Bethlehem will not be a tyrant but a shepherd who rules with peace.

Peace is such a rarity. How do we citizens of this world conceive of peace? Is it when we dominate, control others? Is it when we become wealthy at the expense of the poor and working-class people of our country and of foreign lands? Is it when there is control and enslavement in the military of other nations? Do we apply the axiom that a lie is only a lie until it is often repeated when it becomes an alternate reality?

How can we ever achieve peace? “Ah, Bethlehem, too small to be among the clans of Juda.” From you shall come the One who shepherds – who loves every one of the people. There is something here about the good news. That something is first and foremost the Love of the Creator for Creation – all and each of it. It is what is known as the life of God. As we approach the birth of this shepherd, if we imitate the Father’s love, then we will have peace. But not ever before. We have to get the chains of hatred, violence, distrust, and the accumulation syndrome that seems hard-wired into our psyches.

Dennis Keller dennis@preacherexchange.com 

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3.
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Year C: 4th Sunday of Advent

“Blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled.”

In a parish where I sometimes go to say Mass, there is a guitarist, a really excellent guitarist with a beautiful finger style technique and a marvelous rich alto voice. But she is very also badly disabled by multiple sclerosis. She can walk only with great difficulty and visible pain, leaning heavily on her stick. And when she tries to climb stairs, it takes her a very long time and a lot of effort. It’s both excruciating and frightening to watch her, all the time you feel that she is going to fall. But she is a woman of great determination and she presses on. And now that I’ve got to know her, she has trusted me with her story. When she was young, she knew that she had a great talent for music, for playing guitar and for singing. And she had this really strong beautiful soprano voice. And she wanted to use that for God. So, because she says music is always missionary, she joined a missionary order.

For many years God used her gift of music in missions in many countries. But after about 25 years, she found that she was beginning to get tired easily and that her guitar playing was deteriorating, no matter how hard she practiced. Fingering techniques which had been second nature to her were now awkward and difficult. And in her legs, she was finding some movements more difficult than she could remember. It was becoming hard to run or to take any exercise. After many months, she went to see a Doctor, who sent her to a neurologist who told her after some tests that she had multiple sclerosis.

Over the years since that diagnosis, she has found herself getting progressively worse. In particular, her ability to walk and do almost any muscular activity has got steadily worse and she knows this will continue until her death.

But for a long time her guitar playing and her singing were preserved and she was thankful for this. But just over the last couple of years these are also beginning, at least to her own ears, to deteriorate. She was not as good as she was. Even the range of her voice began to change, she could no longer hit the high notes and her voice deepened to an alto range.

But what is troubling her now the most is that it is affecting her eyes. To begin with, it just affected the focus of her eyes. So she could compensate by photocopying the music very large so that she could still read it. But just in the last few months she has been getting double vision so that when she tries to look at the music all she sees is a confused jumble of notes that are meaningless and uninterpretable. So now she has to try to play only by ear and by memorising all the music and all the words that she has to sing.

The music she can still manage easily enough. But she finds it difficult to memorise all the words, particularly in long hymns. So now, if she finds increasingly that in long hymns, she will forget the words and even sometimes the music. For a long time, she found that humiliating. And she could see that among the congregation, more and more people were beginning to notice her mistakes, her lapses, her failures. As someone who all her life has valued and been valued for her gift of music, she gradually feels that bit by bit her one really great gift has been taken away from her. And there is nothing she can do about it. And for a long time that made her miserable.

But what changed is that, in the last few weeks, she has noticed that when she does make mistakes, the congregation doesn’t stop and look at her; what they do is that they sing louder to help her. None of them say anything about it, but she can feel their support at the times she needs it the most. And so she tells me that there is a line in the Mass that she has now come to love more than any other. It is this: “look not upon our sins, but on the faith of your church and grant us the peace and unity of your kingdom where you live forever and ever.”
Let us stand and profess our Faith in God who makes His promises come true in us.

Paul O'Reilly SJ poreillysj@jesuit.org.uk

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2024-12-22 FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT Year C

Micah 5:1-4; Psalm 84; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-45

Micah the prophet tells us, “He shall be Peace!”
Do these words touch something in your heart?
... Awaken a deep sense of longing?

We live in the midst of the storm,
and so, We long for peace.
We know the storm without’
and the storm within us,
and so, We all the more deeply long for peace.

Elijah, lived in the storm,
He longed for peace.
He said, “they are seeking to take my life.”
So He rose up and fled for his life,
“He ... journeyed) into the desert.” seeking refuge there.
He traveled to the mountain of God, Horeb.
Seeking peace ... and so God will welcome Elijah there ...

The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord will pass by.” There was a powerful, strong wind that tore the mountain apart and shattered rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind, there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake, there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.
After the fire, there was a tiny whisper.
And Elijah covered his face as God passed by.

Elijah found his Peace In the gentle whisper.
And empowered by that peace,
he returned to the storm of Israel
and transform the kingdom of David.

Peter also knew the storm,
“in the boat, battered by waves and strong wind,
the disciples saw Jesus walking on the water
they were terrified, and they cried out in their fright,
“it is a Ghost!”
Jesus immediately spoke to them, saying,
“Have courage! It is I. Do not be afraid.”
Peter answered, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you across the water.” He said, “Come!”“

With his focus on Jesus, Peter got out of the boat and started
walking on the water toward Jesus. But when his focus turned to the storm, he became frightened. As he began to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and saved him,

Peter discovered his Peace,
not in the storm, but in the one who saved him.
Once he learned to live in the one who is peace,
He was chosen as “The Rock”
on which Jesus built his church,
and was sent to proclaim the Christ’s Peace to the World.

We think that we will know peace when the storm is past.
When whatever disturbs us has waned.
Yet this is not so...
The scripture tells us “HE is our peace!”
It does not matter what Storm, earthquake, or fire we encounter,
He is the peace, ... the whisper in our hearts!
For “HE IS peace!”

Two women, Mary and Elizabeth,
lived in the storm as well,
We think of this story as wonderful and joyful, and it is,
But the storm rages around them and within them.
Elizabeth, of great age, is now pregnant,
Mary, Pregnant herself,
is unmarried and at this point, facing an uncertain future.

Despite the waves of the storm
Mary sets out in haste to assist her cousin in her need.

In their focus on what God is doing,
(and not on the storm)
Mary gives the greeting,
and Elizabeth the blessing.
Elizabeth’s Child, leaps for joy, in anticipation,
Both praise and glorify God
for HE who shall be peace, is about to be born among them!

We do not find Peace elsewhere,
not even in the calm between the storms of our lives,

But rather,
“The peace the world cannot give,” is only in Him.
And that peace, ... has chosen to dwell within us

Fr. John J. Boll, OP

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Volume 2 is for you. Your thoughts, reflections, and insights on the next Sundays readings can influence the preaching you hear. Send them to preacherexchange@att.net.  Deadline is Wednesday Noon. Include your Name, and Email Address.
 

-- Fr. John

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